Anti-Piracy

June 12, 2006
Volume 13, Issue 9

P2P MEDIA SUMMIT Next Week

There are just a few days left to save up to $250 by taking advantage of early registration rates for the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT, the DCIA’s first annual Conference & Exposition, taking place next Thursday and Friday in McLean, VA.

The P2P MEDIA SUMMIT is a must-attend event for everyone concerned with commercial development of the peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing marketplace, including software developers and distributors, content providers, service-and-support companies, and all other interested parties.

Registrants for the full Conference & Exposition are also entitled to admission to the Digital Media Conference at no additional charge. Please click here to register online or call 888-864-3242.

EMI’s Digital Decision

As the one-year anniversary of the Grokster decision rolls around, music companies are still looking for ways to make money through digital music.

London-based EMI now says it is the first major music company to make its catalog available via what will be the "world’s first advertising-supported P2P music distribution service."

For this new advertising effort, EMI has signed a licensing deal with Qtrax. Qtrax was developed by e-commerce software maker LTDnetwork, whose Chairman & CEO Allan Klepfisz will keynote next week at the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT.

Revenue will be split fifty-fifty between the two sides. Advertising is likely to come in the form of voice, Internet banners, video, and other media.

EMI says digital sales in publishing and music hit $211.2 million for its full calendar year, up from $88.4 million. Indeed, digital sales are now largely mitigating physical declines.

When launched, the EMI-Qtrax partnership will allow consumers to listen to a chosen track a predetermined number of times. Each time a consumer plays a track, the Qtrax player will also offer the option to purchase songs. It will also provide people with a premium subscription option, and the ability to purchase songs and albums a la carte.

Master P & Lil’ Romeo Embrace P2P

GoDigital Music Group will release new Master P and Lil’ Romeo recordings on P2P networks in the Weed file format, developed by DCIA Member Shared Media Licensing (SML). GoDigital is the first label to pursue a wide release of monetizable files across all P2P networks for any major recording artist.

The partnership breaks new ground in cooperation between a label representing major contemporary artists and companies operating in the P2P space. The relationship involves seeding all major P2P networks with Weed files from rap mogul Master P and Lil’ Romeo, the youngest artist to ever have a #1 Billboard hit.

The effort includes "Gutta Time" a track from Master P’s forthcoming album "America’s Most Luved Bad Guy" that will exclusively be available on P2P networks through Weed. The initial seeding also includes Romeo’s latest single and video, "Can’t Shine Like Me" from his current digital-only release "Lottery" and his upcoming compact disc "God’s Gift."

When users download a Weed-enabled file, they may listen to the full track up to three times prior to being prompted to purchase the track. "Purchasing is incredibly easy" said John Beezer, President of SML. "It takes about 15 seconds to setup a Weedshare account and we deposit $5 in your account to start."

Jason Peterson, Founder & President of the GoDigital group of companies added, "Our intent with this partnership is to introduce Master P and Romeo Weed files into all of the P2P networks, including BitTorrent, eDonkey, Gnutella, Kazaa, LimeWire, and Morpheus, with the goal of creating a new link in the value chain for recorded music."

Look for more groundbreaking developments from the SML-GoDigital partnership and new hip hop from Master P in the coming weeks and months as the content roll-out continues and more strategic partners are announced.

Report from CEO Marty Lafferty

We look forward to providing valuable services to these newest DCIA Members and supporting their contributions to commercial development of the distributed computing industry. Please plan now to meet these and other industry-leading DCIA Members next week at the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT.

Beyond Media is a late-stage development company that has a solution set of applications including a revolutionary transport protocol for the broadcast of live streaming audio-and-video digital content over the Internet. This can be done over private networks or the public Internet. Beyond Media’s solution saves significant bandwidth requirements for live digital-content broadcasts. Such bandwidth reduction in turn significantly reduces costs to deliver streaming digital content.

The media industry is trying to build digital markets utilizing the Internet with tools and delivery technologies that are very costly to implement and maintain due to old and limiting technologies and high-bandwidth requirements. That is why Beyond Media developed BeyondCast, a revolutionary, multi-faceted, secure, and scaleable digital media distribution technology. BeyondCast securely leverages the unlimited and untapped processing power and bandwidth of networked computers for the fastest secure transmission of any file type and the highest quality real-time streaming audio-and-video content, capable of supporting any digital rights management (DRM) and billing platform or portal with minimal modification.

Blitzfile is a P2P system involving both a business process and technology that combine certain aspects of swarming technology with a UDP based firewall penetration system. Blitzfile also uses nested encryption with both public and private keys to secure content.

Consumers and business personnel share the common need of having to continuously monitor the environment for social, commercial, and editorial information in order to take immediate and timely actions. Orbis Messaging’s patent-pending remote alert system provides a method by which end-users are able to take immediate actions on hand-held devices based on pre-determined triggers (such as when stocks reach 52-week highs or lows, when prices are reached on auctions such as eBay, etc.).

An example is a stock alert and trading system. The user would create a stock alert trigger on an Orbis server and would be notified immediately when the trigger condition (such as a stock reaching a target price) is met. The user can receive the alert on any portable device including a cell-phone and can initiate trading actions on the same device. This ability to act in real-time allows individuals to operate efficiently without having to be in an office, at home in front of a computer, or at a WiFi hot-spot location.

Pando Networks is a small company with a large dose of determination. Just over a year old and 15 employees strong, Pando Networks’ mission is solving the problem of big-file transfers that has plagued companies and annoyed consumers for years. Pando offers people generating large files, particularly home video, a free solution with unparalleled ease-of-use. In addition, businesses will soon be able to use Pando’s technology to reach consumers in exciting new ways.

Pando solves the sharing problem for people who don’t have the time or desire to set up albums or online "spaces," don’t want to send friends to websites to go fetch their files, and really just want something as simple to use as e-mail. Now consumers can simply e-mail their home movies, folders full of high-resolution photographs, and/or heavy-duty presentations to any e-mail address, with responses going directly to Pando users’ existing e-mail accounts.

Underneath the Pando application is Pando Networks’ innovative P2P architecture. Based on BitTorrent protocols but re-architected with "push" capabilities (versus the "pull" paradigm of traditional distributed networks including P2P), Pando Networks takes full advantage of the platform’s widely recognized file distribution efficiencies while adding essential business components. To date, Pando has delivered over 1.5 petabytes of data.

There are a limited number of sponsorship opportunities remaining for the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT. For more information, please contact DCIA Member Services leader Karen Kaplowitz at 888-890-4240 or karen@dcia.info.

The Conference’s panel discussions, value-optimization workshop, and special luncheon session will explore where the industry is heading, how P2P technology will evolve in coming years, what mainstream companies will be involved, which sectors will be impacted, who will be the winners and losers, and what the next generation of P2P companies will look like.

The post-Conference networking cocktail reception includes a showcase featuring live entertainment by Kirsten DeHaan, Drew Gonzalves, and the Internet’s First Rock Star, Scooter Scudieri.

For the complete agenda and to register, please click here. Our special pre-registration rates for the Conference ($399) and Conference & Exposition ($499 - which includes the Digital Media Conference) will end June 16th. Share wisely, and take care.

How the Web Dominates our Lives

It used to be that most Americans took their morning coffee with Katie Couric or Diane Sawyer. Now increasingly they’re turning to the Internet to inform them first thing in the morning.

According to new research, the Internet has become the No.1 or No. 2medium behind television during nearly every daypart, and that includes mornings from 8 AM to 11 AM, where it has surpassed radio.

Web usage peaks between 2 and 5 PM, when nearly 40 percent of all users are online either at work or at home. The study, released this week by the Online Publisher’s Association, also offers in-depth details of how people use the Internet in conjunction with other media.

It was conducted by researchers from Ball State University’s Center for Media Design, who tracked the media usage of 350 people, recording their activities every 15 seconds.

The study found that more than 60 percent of respondents used the Internet for roughly two hours per day. It also found that those who use the web more than any other medium, called web dominant, spend about $5,000 more per year on retail goods than those who are TV dominant.

Yet despite the Internet’s rise since 1995, when just 10 percent of respondents went online, it still only made up about 8 percent of advertising spending last year.

Please click here for Media Life’s full interview with Pam Horan, President of OPA, about the ad dollar discrepancy, why web-dominant consumers tend to spend more, and which media are used together most often.

Content Owners Must Harness Power of P2P

Major media players such as Disney, Sony, Warner, and Universal will benefit from making their content available over P2P networks, according to the latest research from the Strategy Analytics Broadband Media and Communications service.

This report, "TV and Movie Downloads: Harnessing the Power of P2P," concludes that P2P networks will perform a vital strategic role in the media and entertainment industries, which will provide social stickiness and economic efficiencies, as well as supporting a growing number of alternative business models, pricing strategies, and legal consumption experiences.

"But our analysis suggests that P2P will ultimately provide considerable benefits for content providers seeking to tap into the growing demand from consumers for video, music, and games delivered over the Internet."

The report also provides an introduction to the commercial potential of P2P networks offered by providers such as BitTorrent, SnoCap, Akamai, Kontiki, Brightcove, Google, and YouTube, as well as a strategic snapshot of a space that is now undergoing considerable diversification, innovation, and investment.

Trymedia & Double Fusion Offer In-Game Ads

DCIA Member Trymedia Systems, the games division of Macrovision, and Double Fusion, a leading provider of in-game advertising technology and marketing solutions, are partnering to launch a new in-game advertising offering via the Trymedia network of online portals, ISPs, and e-commerce sites.

The new offering will deliver around-game ads, a subset of the in-game advertising category, and feature rich media and video pre-roll ads that a consumer views at the start of game play. As part of a try-and-buy downloadable game, the new offering enables advertisers to effectively sponsor the game trial period.

Consumer product advertisers are increasingly diverting dollars away from more traditional forms of advertisement in favor of game-associated advertising not only because gamers constitute an attractive demographic, but also because their attention is fully captured while they are immersed in gameplay. Trymedia’s catalog contains a large selection of both core and casual games, so the company is able to offer access to both the 18-34 year-old male core audience as well as the older and more predominantly female players of puzzle and other intuitive mainstream games.

In the new offering, Macrovision is providing the ad-enabling technology as a feature of its ActiveMARK product for digital distribution, as well as an established catalog of PC game content and a network of distribution points. Under the agreement, Double Fusion will be an exclusive sales agent for the in-game ads through the Trymedia network.

"Double Fusion’s reputation and experience in games-related advertising is a strong ally to the power of our worldwide digital distribution network for games," remarked Fred Amoroso, CEO of Macrovision. "The Trymedia network’s combination of casual and core audience enables advertisers to target the most highly-sought demographic groups for consumer product ad campaigns."

Revver Launches Chappelle DVD Promotion

Social networking site Revver.com on Friday announced that it has partnered with Universal Studios Home Video to launch an online promotion called "Invite Dave Chappelle to Your Block Party.

The contest asks members to create videos begging the comic to attend their fictional block party, with the grand prize winner awarded an all-expenses trip to New York City. Universal will release Michel Gondry’s film "Dave Chappelle’s Block Party" on DVD on June 13th.

PlayFirst & Konami Expand Partnership

Konami Digital Entertainment has expanded its partnership with DCIA Member PlayFirst, a leading full-service publisher of casual games, to include additional titles for mobile. The games are expected to be available on mobile platforms next year.

Together, Konami and PlayFirst are expanding the international market for casual games by bringing highly-original content to cell-phones worldwide.

"Konami’s mobile strategy includes a balance of popular casual games in addition to leveraging our internal brands," commented Joe Morris, Vice President, Mobile Content, Konami Digital Entertainment. "By partnering with strong performers in the casual gaming space like PlayFirst, we are able to offer our customers a top-quality mobile entertainment experience."

Under the terms of the agreement, Konami will manage the mobile publishing and distribution of two popular PlayFirst games "Pirate Poppers," developed by Mystery Studio, and "Professor Fizzwizzle," developed by Grubby Games.

Skype Now Offering Avatars

To increase Skype’s appeal, especially to the younger generation, DCIA Member Skype now has a section on its website known as Klonies Studio that allows users to create a Klonie image. Users can change hairstyles, clothing and accessories, expressions, locations, and animated activities.

"Recent surveys we conducted show that personalization capabilities are important to the Skype community," said Saul Klein, Skype VP of Marketing. "Avatars are a key component of the Skype personalization strategy."

As part of a move to capitalize on the impending football world cup in Germany, Skype is offering a "football mania" section allowing users to personalize their image depending upon their national football teams.

In May, Skype released a beta version of Skype version 2.5 and a preview of its new free conference-calling service for as many as 100 participants.

New features include short message service (SMS) to mobile phones and easy dialing, with a country code dropdown menu. Users can also view and click to call their Outlook contacts in Skype and set up shared contact groups.

Digital River & Business Objects Expand

DCIA Member Digital River, a global leader in e-commerce outsourcing, has expanded its e-commerce supplier agreement with Business Objects, the world’s leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions.

The companies recently built and launched Business Objects’ Americas e-commerce site, for which Digital River provides the back-end e-commerce infrastructure and manages the online sale as well as digital and physical delivery of the Crystal family of products, the company’s popular BI reporting and visualization solutions.

"We are excited about the opportunity to expand our relationship and help Business Objects grow its global e-commerce operation," said Dave Alampi, Digital River’s VP of Marketing. "By leveraging our e-commerce services and infrastructure, Business Objects can continue to devote its resources to developing leading business intelligence software."

Customers shopping on the Business Objects Americas online store can now find its Crystal family of products, which delivers a complete set of reporting capabilities, including Crystal Reports, Crystal Vision, and Crystal Xcelsius. Solutions from Business Objects help organizations track, understand, and manage enterprise performance. In addition to executing the downloads for this BI platform, Digital River is processing order transactions using preferred payment methods as well as providing fraud prevention screening and customer service support.

RealFlair’s P2P File-Sharing Bee-Me

UK-based RealFlair has launched Bee-Me, a new simple, secure, and flexible way for workgroups to remotely access and share information, files, and digital content from a single place over the Internet.

Bee-me members, in three easy steps, can get a free online service that allows them to link with other Bee-me.com members, form workgroups, and then share information.

Ideal for groups where some members work in remote locations or for different companies, Bee-me allows colleagues to collaborate and share documents, diaries, and e-mails using any web browser.

Bee-me features include personal file space, web-mail, contact management, and calendar sharing. Bee-me, however, does not allow anyone else to directly access another PC and the client software only talks to the secure Bee-me.com server.

Access from mobile devices such as PDAs and mobile phones will be available within the next three months. Other new services coming soon include Outlook synchronization (available in beta now), automatic lead and enquiry tracking, two-way text messaging, webcam security monitoring, as well as e-commerce services such as shopping baskets, invoicing, and billing. In addition, new Bee-me community services will provide search, user profiling, and personalized screen content.

Users can register for free at www.bee-me.com for 10 Mb file and data sharing space and can upgrade to 1 Gb for £7.99 per month. Bee-Me does not permit the distribution of copyrighted material such as MP3 files.

Rosen Questions Use of Lawsuits

The former CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) believes that lawsuits against individual file sharers no longer serve a purpose.

Hilary Rosen, who left the organization that represents the interests of the major record companies in 2003, said that the industry should concentrate on providing greater availability and interoperability in digital music.

‘I do share a concern that the lawsuits have outlived most of their usefulness and that the record companies need to work harder to implement a strategy that legitimizes more P2P sites and expands the download and subscription pool by working harder with the tech community to get devices and music services to work better together,’ she wrote in her blog.

‘That is how their business will expand most quickly.’

She also said that the industry should reconsider its position on copy protection and digital rights management (DRM), particularly proprietary DRM systems such as that employed on iPods.

Coming Events of Interest

P2P MEDIA SUMMIT – June 22nd-23rd at the Intercontinental Holiday Inn, Tysons Corner, McLean, VA. This first annual DCIA Conference & Exposition will cover policy, marketing, and technology issues affecting commercial development of this emerging high-growth industry. Exhibits and demonstrations will feature industry-leading products and services. For sponsor packages and speaker information, please contact Karen Kaplowitz at 888-890-4240 or karen@dcia.info. DCIA Members Music Dish Network and Javien are our media and e-commerce partners respectively. Plan now to attend.

Washington Digital Media Conference – June 23rd at the Ritz-Carlton, Tysons Corner, McLean, VA. DCIA Conference & Expo attendees can attend this executive briefing on emerging business, policy, and technology issues & opportunities at half-price. This is a must-attend event for media, entertainment and technology businesses, educational institutions, and government agencies involved in the digital distribution of media. The Washington Post calls the event: "a confab of powerful communicators and content providers in the region."

6th Annual Future of Music Policy Summit – October 5th–7th at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. FMC sees hosting this Summit in Canada as an opportunity to expand its perspective on a range of issues – from copyright, to sampling, to digital royalties, to radio, to how various musical communities are managing change. The music marketplace has become truly global, and some of the biggest challenges are navigating the assortment of legal and licensing schemes that encourage and/or impede the promotion and sale of music.